Most people have a
hobby of some sort, an activity that they engage in purely for
the satisfaction it brings them. As with friends, we cant
really explain why we pick the ones we do, other than they just
seem to fit.

I can think of three general types of hobbies
(though they can certainly overlap). Theres the kind of
hobbies you actually perform, like gardening, or being on a
bowling team, or painting. The other two kinds are more
collection oriented. You can physically collect something, like
stamps, or Barbie dolls, or record albums.

The last kind you collect more on the order of
specialized knowledge, or trivia, or whatever you want to call
it. People who have an passionate interest in politics, or a
professional sports team, or StarTrek, fall into
this last group. The idea is to accumulate a depth of knowledge
in your chosen field of interest that transcends any really
practical application. Yet, when you meet someone else with the
same interest, you share something with them on a level that you
do with few others. You can argue with them, trade facts and
jargon, and try to one-up them in some obscure way that, to an
outsider, seems anything from pointless, to weird, to slightly
(or not so slightly) pathetic.

The thing about hobbies is that by definition,
none of them "make sense". You either enjoy one, or you
dont. In spite of this self evident fact, people continue
to try to pass on to others the passion they feel for their
hobbies (Why dont they get it? Are they blind?!),
while shaking their heads at the useless things other people
waste their time with. Of course, theres still strength in
numbers. Professional sports, for instance, are a more
"respectable" hobby (so much so that fans dont
even necessarily think of themselves as engaging in a hobby) for
an adult, than, say, collecting comic books.

So let me explain the reasons I get such a kick
out of watching "Bad" Movies. If these reasons resonate
with you, if they "make sense", then maybe you enjoy or
would enjoy watching Bad Movies, too. If not, well, why are you
reading this?

First of all, I find that when most people hear
I like watching Bad Movies, and ask me why, I usually find they arent
asking me "Why dont you watch Great Movies
instead? Wouldnt that make more sense?". Indeed, in a
lot of ways, it would. However, usually the people asking this
question arent any more interested in watching
"Great" films than they are "Bad" ones. Like
most people, they will go to see, not Showgirls, or
Demi Moores The Scarlet Letter, but neither
do they go to see, say, Fargo, or the Red,
White & Blue trilogy. What do
they see? Independence Day. The Nutty
Professor. Mission Impossible. In other
words, normalmovies. Well crafted, maybe,
but not great.

So it seems that what theyre really
asking is "Why do you watch such weird movies?".
Why watch films from such an extreme end of the cinema Bell
Curve, instead of normal movies, the ones "everybody"
sees. Without even the fig leaf of saying that the films you like
are "better" than the ones everybody else sees (and
thus, implying that, on some level, youre smarter than the
average bear).

I guess this is why I get more understanding
from people who are interested in seeing only the best
films, whether American independent films or foreign ones.
Perhaps because they are interested in films on one extreme end
of the Bell Curve, they have more understanding for those
interested in the other end, than for people who like the
comfortable middle.

Films at the extremes share a totality that
movies in the middle dont. A really great film, a Citizen
Kane for an obvious example, can be watched endless
times. You can focus on its greatness in many different areas
(acting, scripting, direction, cinematography, etc.), and finally
in the way that all these elements integrate. However, its
opposite number, Plan Nine from Outer Space (by
reputation the worst film ever, as Citizen Kane is
the greatest), can be watched and appreciated on as many levels,
only in the opposite direction. Both are perfect. Its just
that one is perfectly great, and the other perfectly awful.

It remains, however, that both have achieved a
level of perfection rarely approached by other films. Maybe Ed
Wood never set out to make Plan 9 the worst film ever, but it
remains that he "achieved" it anyway: a film that would
be considered by many to be the worst films ever, rising
above (or sinking below) thousands of other lame, stupid and
inept movies. Plan 9 remains famous and beloved in
a way that an endless number of better films, including some
great ones, never will. Ed Wood has achieved immortality, and in
his own way, is one the most famous motion picture directors who
ever lived.

So what characteristics are handy for one
interested in becoming a Bad Movie fanatic? A good sense of
humor, of course, heavily shaded towards sarcasm if possible. An
eye and ear for detail, in performances, dialogue, and plot
implausibilities. An ability to endure boredom is essential. In
fact, to become a true connoisseur, its necessary to come
to actually appreciate boredom.

Recently, I saw a Japanese film called Last
Days of Planet Earth, dealing with the end of the world
as supposedly predicted by Nostradamus. Here was a movie, under
ninety minutes long, that had earthquakes, freezing oceans,
hurricanes, giant slugs and bats, living vines attacking subway
trains, holes in the ozone causing people to fry under solar
radiation, a miles long stretch of traffic jammed cars exploding,
mutating humans, and much more besides. And what was the
overwhelming characteristic of this film? It was BORING!! I mean,
the struggling to stay awake kind of boring. Its the type
of film where you wonder if its making no sense because it
just makes no sense to begin with, or if the ability to mentally
grasp it, like grabbing onto a greased pig, is just beyond your
brains capabilities.

Given all that this movie entails, how is it
possible for it to be so dull? Surely, its ability to resist
being interesting no matter what calamities it presents is a
triumph of some sort, isnt it? Some negative genius must be
at work here, and thus should be acknowledged, and, on some
level, appreciated.

Right?

The last thing needed is affection. After all,
these movies supply pleasure. No matter how much you make fun of
them, you love them too. Theres nothing like the endorphin
rush when, after stalking the video aisles for hours, you finally
find that Pia Zadora or Richard Burton classic youve never
seen before. In return, you give them life, for films live as
long as they are watched and remembered. And who else would watch
these films, much less give them a place in their hearts?

In the Beginning

I can remember the exact moment that watching
Bad Movies became a part of my life.

The seeds, of course, were planted in
childhood. As a nerdy child I spent many hours, as many as
possible, watching horror and science fiction movies and TV
shows. Although I would have described my interest as being in
"monster movies". Id didnt draw any
distinctions between The Wolf Man, the giant ants
of Them!, or the fighting skeletons of Jason
and the Argonauts.

I watched everything. As a kid, I was,
of course, pretty undiscriminating. Adding a sense of urgency
were the technologies of the time. There were no VCRs, no cable
TV or satellite dishes. You could never be sure when, or if, you
would ever get the chance to see any certain movie again. It was
entirely up to the scheduling gods. I would watch classics like King
Kong or The Invisible Man, likely to be
telecast fairly often, because they were so great. However, it
was all the more important to catch the Billy the Kid vs.
Draculas, because they were more likely not to be
shown again.

Thus, I grew up watching a lot of crappy
movies. Yet, they were monster movies, and they wormed their way
into my heart too. Why not? If you loved Bela Lugosi, and I did,
you were aware that there werent too many Draculas
or The Black Cats in his filmography. I knew,
even as a kid, that The Ape Man and Voodoo
Man and Bowery After Midnight werent
that hot. Still, though, the great Lugosi was in them, and so
they were as worth watching as his Universal classics. The same
for Karloff, of course, but he really didnt make nearly as
many cheapies as Lugosi, so it didnt come up as often. This
same logic worked for bad monster movies of all stripes. Some
were better than others, but they were all great.

So the first major seed of my coming love for
Bad Movies had been planted. As I grew up, love for even the
worst monster flicks turned into nostalgia. I still loved them,
but could at the same time acknowledge that some of them were
pretty poor. As, like many of my generation, my sense of humor
skewed towards the ironic and the sarcastic, I was pretty well
primed to become a Bad Movie maven. Three factors then ensured I
did.

The first took place at the Maine West high
school library. Going randomly through the film books, as I was
(and am) wont to do, I found one of the great treasures of my
life: Harry and Michael Medveds The Fifty Worst Films of
All Times. Here fifty films of all types; cheapies and
blockbusters, obscure and famous, made by unknowns or the most
famous stars and directors Hollywood had to offer, were subjected
to the knife. The Medveds unmercifully and hilariously
dissected every plot flaw, silly line of dialogue and hammy
performance these very rich films had to offer. They also quoted
harsh reviews from newspapers and magazines. One film, I think
Otto Premingers Hurry Sundown, was reviewed
this way, "This is a movie so bad that insulting it is like
tripping a dwarf". I had never, nor have I again, found so
funny a book. I literally cried at almost each paragraph.

While few in Hollywood or the national media
will give the Medveds any credit (for film critic Michael, it
turned out, was revealed as that most unforgivable of all things:
a conservative), the entire mini-industry of Bad Movie fandom was
born with their books. Indeed, it was their second book, The
Golden Turkey Awards, that started the whole "Worst
Ever" fame for director/writer Ed Wood, Jr. and his classic Plan
9 From Outer Space. If not for the Medveds, not only
would books like Bad Movies We Love or The Worst Films
Ever not have been written, but certainly Tim Burtons
movie EdWood would probably not have been made.
Their influence continues here as well.

The kindling was provided by the book. The
spark soon appeared. Late one Saturday night, my mother called up
the stairs to where I was ensconced in my room. She called me
downstairs, saying that if I was looking for bad movies, she had
a doozy. There, on her TV screen, ran a movie that I immediately
recognized as "the one". It was a simply awful flick
about some high school kids and their adventure with Bigfoot. As
the remaining half hour ran, I sat mesmerized. The next day, I
looked in the TV Guide to find that the title of the movie was Curse
of Bigfoot. I never looked back.

The fire was kept alive in part due to a
comrade-in-arms to share this odd hobby with. I had met Andrew
Muchony in high school as part of a group of people who hung out
together. Among his various occupations, Andrew had a background
similar to mine in terms of monster movies and sarcasm. I
excitedly described Curse of Bigfoot to him.
Luckily, by keeping an eye on the TV listings, I was able to find
a repeat showing, and garnered an early video recording. His
viewing of my copy resulted in a similar enthusiasm. Shortly
after, we hooked another classic, Larry Buchanans Its
Alive (not to confused with Larry Cohens
"mutant baby" flick).

We were teenagers, and so brought a certain
passion to our new hobby. We would watch Curse of Bigfoot
(and later Its Alive) over and over and over
again. Amazed at how slow segments of either film were, we would
time sequences by watching them again. Then forgetting how long
exactly the scenes were, we would conduct the experiment again.
Sometimes, operating under a "Chicken" principal, to
see who would surrender to common sense first (the loser), we
would watch the films repeatedly over the course of an evening.
Weve between us seen hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Bad
Movies in the decade and a half since. None, though, with the
fervor and detailed preoccupation with which we gawked at those
two. They were, in terms of the hobby, our first loves.

Over the years, Ive managed to infect
only one other person, Jeff Witham, with a love for Bad Movies on
the scale of mine or Muchonys. Unfortunately, Jeff moved to
Arizona, so we share our mania on a rather less regular basis
now. My other friends occasionally let me badger them into
watching one, but its got to be a real zinger, like the
Mexican horror opus The Brainiac or the Village
People flick Cant Stop the Music. Once a year
I attend B-Fest, a straight twenty four hours of B-movies held at
Northwestern University, where I commune with my kind. Like the
lonely cat-people in STEPHEN KINGS SLEEPWALKERS,
I know there are more of us out there, somewhere. Maybe this
magazine will help me find some of them.